Valerie J. Matsumoto\'s \"Farming the Home Place\"

Matsumoto

In Farming the Home Place, Valerie J. Matsumoto traces three generations of Japanese-Americans living in the San Joachin Valley of California during the 20th century. Agriculture becomes an overarching, extended metaphor in Farming the Home Place. Imagery of planting roots evokes the universal immigrant experience in attempting to forge new identities for future generations. The literal experience of farming for a living has a direct parallel in the figurative forms of farming cultural identities in foreign places. Just as plant samples can be grafted and planted elsewhere, people also uproot themselves and set down new lives in a new terroir. By doing so, they create synthesized identities that combine their roots with the air, sun, soil, and water of the new land. In the process of telling the stories of Japanese families in America, Matsumoto reveals little-known aspects of American cultural history and Asian-American history in particular. Although the focus of the book is on the Japanese-American experience, Matsumoto manages to universalize the dualistic themes of diversity and discrimination; and conformity and cultural empowerment.

One of the central themes of Farming the Home Place is the "attraction of life within a close-knit community" that has already been established (3). Community greatly facilitates the process of immigration. New immigrants invariably find the "unfamiliar foods and customs" hard to deal with at first (Matsumoto 17). Community organizations that facilitate assimilation, acculturation, and integration are crucial for creating cohesive psychic and social identities.

Moreover, the tendency to emphasize community wellness is part of the overall "process of becoming American," according to Matsumoto (3). In the context of immigration experiences, community building reflects the organic nature of assimilation. Matsumoto argues emphatically against an overly simplistic or reductionist view of the immigrant experience. One of the strongest points of Farming the Home Place is the author's keen understanding that culture is dynamic and constantly changing. There is no magical or mechanical transmission of culture from one generation to the next. In fact, the new land influences culture as much as the previous generation; there is no need to judge or criticize the process of cultural assimilation or acculturation. The concept of community and its reflection of the organic nature of culture is even evident now, when people are more transient -- partly because the creation of online communities can substitute for more earth-bound ones.